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The way most of us are raised, receiving is considered a weakness.
The willingness to win or lose moves us out of an adversarial relationship to life and into a powerful kind of openness. From such a position, we can make a greater commitment to life. Not only pleasant life, or comfortable life, or our idea of life, but all life.
Suffering and happiness
Aug. 23rd, 2010 12:45 pmA patient once told me that he had tried to ignore his own suffering and the suffering of other people because he had wanted to be happy. Yet becoming numb to suffering will not make us happy. The part in us that feels suffering is the same as the part that feels joy.
Living and surviving
Aug. 23rd, 2010 12:43 pmWhat we do to survive is often very different from what we may need to do in order to live.
At the heart of any real intimacy is a certain vulnerability. It is hard to trust someone with your vulnerability unless you can see in them a matching vulnerability and know that you will not be judged. In some basic way it is our imperfections and even our pain that draws others closer to us.
Objectivity; fear of loss
Aug. 21st, 2010 04:43 pmObjectivity separates us from the life around us and within us.
If we fear loss enough, in the end the things we possess will come to possess us.
If we fear loss enough, in the end the things we possess will come to possess us.
In avoiding all pain and seeking comfort at all cost, we may be left without intimacy or compassion; in rejecting change and risk we often cheat ourselves of the quest; in denying our suffering we may never know our strength or our greatness. Or even that the love we have been given can be trusted.
Labels and uncertainty
Aug. 21st, 2010 04:39 pmWe put labels on life all the time. "Right," "wrong," "success," "failure," "lucky," "unlucky," may be as limiting a way of seeing things as "diabetic," "epileptic," "manic-depressive," or even "invalid." Labeling sets up an expectation of life that is often so compelling we can no longer see things as they really are. This expectation often gives us a false sense of familiarity toward something that is really new and unprecedented. We are in relationship with our expectations and not with life itself.
Like a diagnosis, a label is an attempt to assert control and manage uncertainty. It may allow us the security and comfort of a mental closure and encourage us not to think about things again. But life never comes to a closure, life is a process, even mystery. Life is known only by those who have found a way to be comfortable with change and the unknown. Given the nature of life, there may be no security, but only adventure.
Like a diagnosis, a label is an attempt to assert control and manage uncertainty. It may allow us the security and comfort of a mental closure and encourage us not to think about things again. But life never comes to a closure, life is a process, even mystery. Life is known only by those who have found a way to be comfortable with change and the unknown. Given the nature of life, there may be no security, but only adventure.
Perfection
Aug. 21st, 2010 04:32 pmFew perfectionists can tell the difference between love and approval. Perfectionism is so widespread in this culture that we actually have had to invent another world for love. "Unconditional love," we say. Yet, all love is unconditional. Anything else is just approval.
Judgment and approval
Aug. 21st, 2010 04:30 pmJudgment does not only take the form of criticism. Approval is also a form of judgment. When we approve of people, we sit in judgment of them as surely as when we criticize them.
It is not an either/or world. It is a real world.
It is not an either/or world. It is a real world.
